As missionaries we both love having our family visit as well as meeting so many new people. We have been blessed in abundance with both these past couple weeks! But "what goes up must come down" and with these experiences also come many farewells. Farewells can be hard!
Sage, Emily, and Whitney came and went and we are so grateful for their visits. With our family the difficulty of farewells is offset somewhat as we get to continue to see them weekly by video and will be home with them again in just a few months. On the other hand with our missionaries and young single adults, we don't have that same assurance. We may see some at reunions, stay connected online, or have them visit us while passing through Missouri. But for some with whom we have shared a lot of time and special experiences, we may simply not meet again in this life. Although sad it is also a reminder of how grateful we are for those we are getting to know.
As we think of who we wouldn’t know if we hadn’t chosen to serve a mission, the list includes:
Singapore Zone Missionaries (40+)
Other Singapore Mission young and senior missionaries (150+)
Other Asia Area missionaries (100+)
Singapore Young Single Adults (100+)
Other Singapore stake members (40+)
Others in Singapore from our condo, interfaith work, and other experiences (20+)
Some we have gotten to know extremely well while others are more in passing, but no matter how you count it, we have met A LOT of great people who are blessing us tremendously through their different experiences and perspectives.
Last week the first group of missionaries that we really had come to know well over several months completed their missions. They returned to East and West Malaysia, the Philippines, and several of the United States. We know that they will make a big difference in their communities and families there as they have here. Missions change people and we are grateful for the changes we are experiencing and have seen in them.
As I usually did in my work blog of 8+ years, I’ll close with a Top 5 list of other items:
Happy Birthday Mom! Vivian’s mother Connie had a big milestone birthday last week and there was quite the bash in celebration. All her other children, a majority of her grandchildren, a few great-grandchildren, and wonderful friends, neighbors, and church members showed up to honor her. Our children contributed with amazing cakes (Brock), slide shows (Branden), and jet lagged visits (Sage, after only being back in Atlanta from Southeast Asia for a couple days). We are so grateful for their representation. We would have loved to be there but look forward to celebrating when Connie and some of Vivian’s siblings come this way in December!
General Conference. We loved participating in this semiannual tradition this past weekend. It’s very hard when you are offset 14 hours, but we made it work and we loved the speakers and music. A couple of my favorite examples of each:
Speaker: Following Christ
Voting. We have finally downloaded our ballots and will be sending them off. We are grateful for the freedom and ability to vote even from across the world.
Apartment hunting. Our apartment lease comes up for renewal soon and we have been asked to look at some options closer into the office. We’ll share more on this in future posts, especially if we wind up moving, but it was very interesting to get to see a half dozen different possibilities.
Mission music. Senior missionaries’ restrictions on music aren’t quite the same as junior missionaries, but we definitely try to be sensitive and surround ourselves with uplifting music. One of my very favorite artists to whom I listen almost daily is Nathan Pacheco. Here’s my playlist if you’re the Apple Music type. It’s 4.5 hours long and I get through it most days 😊
As hinted above, look for some more guest blogging coming up soon! Have a wonderful week and know that God loves you and that we love you.
Photos
1-7: Outing to Pulau Ubin, an island off our island of Singapore. It has been preserved from urbanization and represents more of the “Old Singapore” that was much more of a rural village-based life.
8-11: Other activities with Emily and Whitney this past week included Bird Paradise, lots of Dutch Blitz, and saying goodbye!
12-20: Nature shots from various beautiful places like Gardens by the Bay, Botanic Gardens, and Pulau Ubin.
21-23: We love Institute! The second picture is a completely Chat GPT visual I used in class...and it was very valuable! The third is when I asked it to graphically represent it...and it was utterly ridiculous on so many levels! Artificial Intelligence is definitely still in the "hit and miss" stage. See if you can find at least 20 wrong or nonsensical things in it!
24: Getting ready for the big talent night this week.
25: In one state of Malaysia the government changed the weekend in deference to perceived needs of the Muslim community. The change had significant consequences on many things, including the ability of our church members to attend services. Many desired a change back and in August the entire district held a special fast. This week the government changed course and will switch back on January 1st!
26: The mighty, mighty Singapore zone of October and November 2024. We had seven missionaries finish their service last transfer and three finish this transfer. We really love them!
Another very interesting post Sean. You guys have so much going on, always and handle it all with aplomb.
Haha, I looked at the pictures before reading your captions and was so confused by that AI timeline. I could immediately tell it was AI, but I couldn’t guess the context of posting it. 😂 So fun to have all those visitors! Hoping to be among them in January!